3.P - What Weapon Combos Would You Consider Truly Legendary?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Not all weapons are created equally.

3e D&D and 1e PF have tons of weapon enhancements, special qualities, and unique weapons in various sourcebooks, splatbooks, and adventures that can be mixed and matched in various ways to produce results of varying utility and power, but most such effects are pretty lackluster. A +1 weapon can hurt incorporeals occasionally, is a little more accurate and damaging, and is a little tougher to break or sunder, but it's not really anything special, even in a mostly mundane world -- even if it glows. Flaming, frost, shock, thundering, etc look nice but only add +3.5-4.5 damage on average, and so aren't worth the paper they're printed on, let alone the thousands of gp and all the man-hours you have to spend in order to enhance a weapon with them; you can do those things IRL with a bit of flammable oil and a lighter, or a decent battery, some wire, and some technical knowledge. Many other weapon qualities are similar levels of 'meh' when you compare them to truly legendary and epic weapons in fiction, whether it be Legend of Zelda's Four Sword, or the many and varied weapons in the Nasuverse, or Soul Edge, or many real life myths from around the world.

Compared to the Monkey King's Ruyi Jingu Bang, or Cú Chulainn's Gáe Bolg, an adamantine +5 keen/flaming/frost/shock/thundering long sword just doesn't have any real oomph at all. Truly legendary swords or bows can level mountains, while even epic weapons in D&D might put a scorched dent in a rock wall -- if you're ridiculously strong.

So what weapon combos truly put the 'legend' in legendary? Are there any?

The closest I can think of to something like this is a riverine +1 metalline/aptitude/skillful/morphing/sizing/vorpal sword enhanced as an energy bow (https://realmofadventure.fandom.com/wiki/Energy_bow) and also enhanced as a raptor arrow (for both returning and bane [everything]), with a stacked weapon crystal permanently set into it, which has a ton of weapon crystal abilities stacked on it for energy damage, ghost touch, throwing, quick draw, and so on, and enhanced via an acorn of far travel (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?546179-Un-Hallow-that-Stacks) permanently embedded into it with a +5 greater magic weapon effect and a bunch of other buffs tossed on (which, of course, includes repeating surge of fortune to always roll Nat 20s on every swing, bless weapon to auto-confirm crits against evil creatures, haste, and a ton of other very high level buffs whenever you hold it).

Effects vary, depending on exactly what buffs are set into it with the acorn of far travel/hallow combo, but at the very least you have the ultimate Swiss army knife of weapons, capable of turning into literally any kind of weapon you want, of any size you want, which produces its own ammo and kills any evil enemy you successfully hit with a vorpal strike. You might not be leveling any mountains, but at least you can one-hit kill evil stuff reliably, especially if you start stacking true strike and such.

[RandomPeasant]

The way 3.5 handles weapons just isn't very well suited to legendary-ness. In your example, the most "legendary" part of that setup is the trick with acorn of far travel, and you could just as easily stick that on a staff or a ring or a cloak. There are some basic things you can do with weapon enhancements that are at least kinda neat, but even those are fairly limited. Morphing, for example, doesn't let you cross weapon categories, so you can't have a dagger that turns into a greatsword or something. A legendary flaming sword isn't one that does more fire damage than a regular flaming sword, it's one that can project flame to attack at a distance or has some other cool fire-based power.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The way 3.5 handles weapons just isn't very well suited to legendary-ness. In your example, the most "legendary" part of that setup is the trick with acorn of far travel, and you could just as easily stick that on a staff or a ring or a cloak. There are some basic things you can do with weapon enhancements that are at least kinda neat, but even those are fairly limited. Morphing, for example, doesn't let you cross weapon categories, so you can't have a dagger that turns into a greatsword or something. A legendary flaming sword isn't one that does more fire damage than a regular flaming sword, it's one that can project flame to attack at a distance or has some other cool fire-based power.I'll grant that most of the power of the above setup comes from the acorn of far travel/hallow combo, but I'll have to dispute the statement that the morphing/sizing combo wouldn't allow you significant leeway for the kinds of things you can pull off. Morphing allows you to turn the weapon into another of the same category (light, 1H, or 2H, as well as "too large or small to wield"), and sizing allows you to change the weapon's size into [I]any other size category. A Large long sword is a 2H weapon for a Medium creature, just as a Small long sword is a light weapon for a Medium creature. Sizing even larger or smaller would make it "too large or small to wield," which would give you things like trebuchets and such. So that alone gives you access to light, 1H, 2H, and siege weapons, which encompasses pretty much everything you could possibly want to turn it into.

[Telonius]

Specific Epic weapons have a few things that are edging into that direction. A Mace of Ruin (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/weapons.htm#maceofRuin) ignores hardness and DR, and allows you to crit with it on objects and constructs, so you could conceivably bring down a structure with a couple of well-placed blows.

Artifacts are very much lacking in the weapons department. (The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/artifacts.htm#axeoftheDwarvishLords) is embarrassingly bad; a weapon you could build using the Epic rules, plus a bonus to a bunch of crafting skills nobody's going to be using at Epic, plus summon something once a week? And that's the best that Dwarvish Lords could manage?).

Beyond that, you'd probably have to get into Intelligent Magic Items for anything that's both memorable and not terrible.

[RandomPeasant]

Some ideas for things that I think would be legendary weapons, with no (or very little) consideration given to how they'd interact with 3.5 mechanics:

The Traitor's Blade: A longsword that is a Bane weapon against the wielder's type and has the anti-alignment properties that would hurt someone of it's wielder's alignment. The wielder suffers no ill effects from these properties.
Devouring Blade: A primitive sword mage from the jawbone of a great predatory beast, edged with flecks of razor-sharp obsidian. It drains the life of those it touches and absorbs the souls of those it slays. Attacks inflict negative levels, souls are trapped like thinuan, and trapped souls can be used to fuel the same SLAs as a Devourer.
Mountain Maul: A greatclub made of solid granite. The wielder can call upon various Stone Dragon manuevers and [Earth] spells to assist them, and move through the ground like an Earth Elemental.
Titan's Shackles: A spiked chain that immobilizes people it hits and can banish extra-dimensional creatures.
Lighting Javelin: A returning javelin that deals lightning damage in a line between you and its target.


So that alone gives you access to light, 1H, 2H, and siege weapons, which encompasses pretty much everything you could possibly want to turn it into.

I'm not convinced that works how you want. For starters, I don't think it's accurate to claim that siege weapons are a category of weapon, so I think that's out by RAW. I'm also not sure that sizing + morphing in general does what you want. Normal morphing doesn't have any exception for going up a weapon size category by going down an actual size category, so it seems to me that it's at least a reasonable reading that a morphing sizing dagger could turn into a huge dagger or a tiny dagger but not into a longsword of any size.

EDIT:


Artifacts are very much lacking in the weapons department. (The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/artifacts.htm#axeoftheDwarvishLords) is embarrassingly bad; a weapon you could build using the Epic rules, plus a bonus to a bunch of crafting skills nobody's going to be using at Epic, plus summon something once a week? And that's the best that Dwarvish Lords could manage?).

Honestly, I don't think that's a terrible idea for a legendary weapon. Obviously it should be a hammer, rather than an axe, but the basic concept of "weapon that makes you good at making stuff" is very on-brand for the Dwarvish Lords. The issue is the implication that this is a weapon for an Epic level character, rather than something you could find as loot in the low-to-mid teen levels. Certainly it could be cooler, by having the stuff you make also be magic or by giving access to additional crafting-themed abilities like fabricate or a Lyre of Building effect, but overall that seems like a weapon that I could see being a memorable part of someone's story.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm not convinced that works how you want. For starters, I don't think it's accurate to claim that siege weapons are a category of weapon, so I think that's out by RAW. I'm also not sure that sizing + morphing in general does what you want. Normal morphing doesn't have any exception for going up a weapon size category by going down an actual size category, so it seems to me that it's at least a reasonable reading that a morphing sizing dagger could turn into a huge dagger or a tiny dagger but not into a longsword of any size.The light/1H/2H/too large to wield category changes depending on the actual size of the weapon and who is trying to wield it.


The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all.


The wielder of a morphing weapon can reshape it into any other weapon of the same type (light, one-handed, or two-handed) as a standard action.

The handed-ness of a weapon changes according to the size of the weapon and the size of a wielder, and morphing alters the weapon based on the handed-ness of the weapon, and specifically calls out the wielder changing the weapon according to handed-ness.

[Seerow]

The real question is what would seem legendary if you yoinked it out of 3.5 and dropped it into another game/world without context.

But I'd also say legendary comes down more to presentation and aesthetics than raw mechanics, though ideally you want those to line up.

Some of my favorite weapons have been for Gishes where I had a Runestaff built into the weapon. The Earth Warden whose hammer let him smash the ground for an earthquake or raise forth a wall of stone in an instant. The Flame Dancer whose double scimitar could be thrown in a 60ft line and cause an explosion of fire in the area around him. Adding a custom runestaff with 2-4 thematic spells does a lot for making a weapon feel unique and powerful, sadly only an option available for spellcasters.

I am also a big fan of the Ghost Touch Animated Riverine Heavy Shield, which is also enchanted as a weapon with Flying and Sizing. Flexes between a protective Shield and a flying Surfboard depending on what you need.

[Wildstag]

My favorite weapon ability concept is gated behind 3.5 Kobold, but I've always been super-fond of using spears. The Fighter Sub-Levels for Kobold include the ability to take Weapon specific-feats for one of either short/long/spear and applying it to all of them. The Changeling weapon quality (MIC) allows you to change a spear between each of those forms at will.

The only downside is that you're stuck with being a kobold, and if you want to reduce your ability score penalties, you have to lose two bonus feats to change yourself to a +2 Dex -2 Str race. I guess it could make you a legendary kobold though. Or if your GM allows you to translate it to another race, it could work for emulating a Wukong kinda character with the spear-size-changing.

I dunno that any really do what you want. I think it's the player options that make weapons big, not the weapons themselves. Like, I can make a character that uses TWF with whips to get 15 attacks in a round by 20, but it's the character's skill that makes the legend, not the weapon.

P.S. I know Morphing does the same thing but better, and less limiting in weapon type. However, it's a +2,000 gp ability instead of a +1 ability, which means you can fit more qualities in your weapon.

P.P.S. In Pathfinder, the Advanced Weapon Training "Weapon Specialist" does the Kobold thing but you just have to wait until level 5 to do it. The other downside is that the Greater Transformative weapon quality is a 15,000 gp quality, and really, you're not spending that much on your weapon until much later than level 5 unless you can craft yourself for a "cheaper" weapon (the additional cost being the feats taken).

[AsuraKyoko]

I think part of the problem with making truly legendary abilities for weapons is the way item save DCs are calculated. Take, for example, a sword that can make itself function basically like a Black Blade of Disaster. It sounds like something that would be this amazing, super powerful weapon, right?
Well, it would have a save DC of 23. The average Fortitude save bonus of a CR 17-20 monster is +21, which means that they only fail on a natural 1. A weapon that will very occasionally function properly isn't legendary, it's gimmicky. Making this worse is the price. A permanent BBoD would cost 360,000 gp, which is both beyond the cap of non-epic pricing, and almost half of a lvl 20 character's WBL.

(Data taken from here: http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=3472.0)

I know that this isn't exactly using typical weapon enhancements, but there are a number of weapons out there that have spell effects built in to them, and honestly, spell effects are probably one of the better ways of doing the truly legendary things. Most of the standard weapon enhancements are relatively generic, all things considered, whereas there are tons of different unique spells out there.

[AvatarVecna]

There's probably some nonsense that could be cooked up without cost manipulation. Restrictions by alignment, class, and skill can reduce the market price by 70%, putting 666k gp items within the non-epic range. If you're pulling shuriken shenanigans, that's 1/50th cost, so you can get items up to 10 million into the non-epic range. If you're doing both, that's 33.333 million in the non-epic range. Morphing+Sizing should work just fine, and you can stack up absolute tons of nice spell effects and purchased feats with that kinda cash. If you're not doing that...

...I did see a kinda nice combo between 3.5 and PF stuff that doesn't require a ton of cheating?

Piercing Blade (192000)
3000?: Kaorti Resin material
80: Elven Curve Blade (PF)
72000: Enchantment +6:
+1: Enhancement +1
+1: Keen
+1: Shattermantle (MIC)
+3: Nullifying (PF)
120000: At-Will Use-Activated "Lower Spell Resistance" CL 15

1d10 base damage, can be used with Weapon Finesse, 15-20/x4 crits. +1 enhancement to attack and damage, counts as magic for the purposes of bypassing DR.

On a hit, target's SR is reduced by 2 points for 1 round. This is self-stacking.

On a hit (or crit), target's SR is reduced by 1 point (or 4 points) for 1 minute. This is self-stacking.

On a hit, the target must make a DC 16 Fort save or have their SR reduced by 15 points for 15 minutes. The target takes a -15 to this save, and SR does not apply against this effect. This ability is not self-stacking, although it should stack with the others.

So...yeah, a fighter making a full attack with this thing will be making tons of foes more vulnerable to magical assault. Anything that combos with casters is powerful. Even that 33 million nonsense shuriken? That'd be cool and all, but it'd still be just a weapon. No matter what you're buying with all that gp-equivalent cash, it's not gonna be as legendary as the ability to grant your own wishes. But making enemies more vulnerable to your ally's spells is quite lovely.

Here's another 3.P combo I cooked up for a low-epic game awhile back:

PIRATE KING'S CUTLASS (208510 gp market price)

Reginald has heard tell of a pirate king whose loyal crew each gained the strength of ten men under his direction, a pirate king who inspired armies. This king of thieves has procured a special weapon to enhance his presence, a flawless diamond cutlass that took enchantment with ease. Reginald has pieced together the bits of legend he's found of this man in an attempt to recreate the item for his newfound ally Farel. The result is this:
This weapon counts as a +1 scimitar for the most part
Diplomacy and Perform +5 (competence)
Initiative +4 (circumstance)
If you fail a save against an Mind-Affecting effect, you can retry the save every round as long as you hold this weapon
While wielding this weapon, you count as a bard five levels higher for purposes of bardic performance, or nine levels higher for purposes of Inspire Courage
While wielding this weapon, you increase your Inspire Courage bonus by +3
If you use your bardic music ability while wielding the weapon, the blade resonates in harmony, dealing additional sonic damage on each attack equal to half your effective bard level for performance purposes.
If you hold this weapon when you begin a bardic music effect, the weapon can continue the effect for you, allowing you to focus on other efforts. One round after you begin a bardic music effect that allows or requires continued use or concentration (including inspire courage, countersong, fascinate, inspire competence, inspire greatness, song of freedom, and inspire heroics), the weapon picks up and continues the performance flawlessly for 10 rounds, until you start another bardic music effect, or until you command it to end as a swift (mental) action.
If you hold this weapon when you begin using bardic music for inspire courage, inspire greatness, or countersong, the range of those abilities becomes 1d10 miles.

Harmonizing/Crystal Echoblade (10310)
----Magic Item Compendium, pages 35 and 49
----Crystal Echoblade (4310): This is a +1 longsword scimitar that gives sonic damage while performing
----Harmonizing (+6000): This +1 enchantment holds the song for you for a minute, starting the round after you start the song. Going from a +1 weapon to a +2 is (2000-->8000) +6000 gp

Banner Of The Ancient Kings (18000)
----http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/banner-of-the-ancient-kings
----Init +4 (circumstance)
----If you fail a save against an MA effect, you can retry the save every round as long as you hold this weapon
----Count as Bard +4 for Inspire Courage

Continuous "Badge Of Valor" item (45000)
----Magic Item Compendium, page 208
----Inspire Courage +1
----The base item is 1400 gp and works 3/day for the duration of a single performance; dividing by 3 and multiplying by 100 (to find the rough cost of a 100/day item, which is roughly equivalent to continuous?) gives a rough cost of 46666.66 gp. Compare that to...
Continuous "Green Tribal War Paint" item (45000)
---https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/m-p/paint-tribal-war-paint/
----Inspire Courage +1
----The base item is single-use, lasts 24 hours, and costs 900 gp. 100 uses (roughly equivalent to continuous benefit?) gives a rough cost of 90000 gp. However, this is slotless, unlike the previous item which takes up a slot, and slotless is generally double the slotted price. This means that each of these items should cost approximately 45000 gp if they take up a slot and give the bonus continuously.

Vest of Legends (16000)
----DMG 2, page 272-273
----Diplomacy +5 (competence)
----Perform +5 (competence)
----Bard +5 for bardic performance

Continuous "Inspirational Boost" spell (8000)
----Spell Compendium, page 124
----Inspire Courage +1
----This spell is a swift action to cast and lasts a round, improving any performance started before the spell ends. One could argue that a continuous item of this spell only affects the next such performance instead of every performance, and that you would be better off getting an item letting you cast this spell at-will (which would cost 2000 gp instead, but would take up another swift action).

Masterwork Alphorn (100)
----Masterwork Musical Instrument: Player's Handbook, page 128/130
----Alphorn: Song And Silence, page 42
----The alphorn’s deep pitch carries its sound to a distance of 1d10 miles. This allows the use of inspire greatness, countersong, and inspire courage effects even when great distances separate the musician from his or her listeners.



Base item: Harmonizing Echoblade (1 x [4310+6000], or 10310)

Additional Items: Masterwork Alphorn (2 x 100, or 200)

Additional effects: everything else (1.5 x [18000+45000+45000+16000+8000], or 198000)

Total cost: 208510

The downside is, I think this one technically can't be purchased pre-epic? If you wanted to make it epic-legal, you'd need to remove Inspirational Boost. It's only giving you a +1 effective inspire courage, and that would put the cost of all the magic stuff at 200k - exactly the nonepic limit.

[Khedrac]

Compared to the Monkey King's Ruyi Jingu Bang, or Cú Chulainn's Gáe Bolg, an adamantine +5 keen/flaming/frost/shock/thundering long sword just doesn't have any real oomph at all. Truly legendary swords or bows can level mountains, while even epic weapons in D&D might put a scorched dent in a rock wall -- if you're particularly strong.

So what weapon combos truly put the 'legend' in legendary? Are there any?

The Mace of Cuthbert and the Sword of Kas.

By comparing D&D weapons to this sort of marker you are firmly in the "artifact" category - they may not be the best weapons one can make, but for a weapon to be "truly legendary" as you put it, it will be an artifact even if it did not start out that way!

Most D&D weapons are more at the level of "that's a nice sword - I'll use it for a bit", an attitude nicely summed up by Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser who do wield "named" weapons, but always use the same names for their weapons, wherever they got them from. (They do stick to the same types of weapons, so Fafhrd's "Greywand" is always a two-handed or bastard sword and The Grey Mouser's "Cat's Claw" is always a dagger.)

So yes, some D&D weapons can actually be a good enough fit for a character's style that they will keep that weapon over an objectively "better" weapon that doesn't suit them, but the "truly legendary" weapons are those the DM has carefully designed and placed and don't necessarily strictly follow the rules for creating magic items.

As for levelling mountains, that is more usually a function of the wielder than the weapon, far too many D&D weapons will demolish a wall undented (i.e. the adamantine ones) something that is quite rare in fiction, and not something I would want to try with Elric's Stormbringer as it would probably object!

[Maat Mons]

Sluggy Freelance has a magic sword named Chaz that always seemed quite legendary to me. When powered up with the blood of the innocent, even the tiniest cut from the sword kills. And unlike D&D death effects, a cut from Chaz isn't something you can "tough out" (that is, make a Fort save). It even permanently kills things that are normally unable to "die" in any meaningful way, including deities. Good luck putting D&D stats to that.

[Psyren]

"Legendary" weapons depend on the power level of the setting. Glamdring is certainly legendary in Middle-Earth for instance, but in Forgotten Realms terms would have abilities that are ultimately not that remarkable.

If you specifically mean in terms of a high-power D&D setting - legacy weapons, artifacts and epic weapons could all qualify.

[RandomPeasant]

I think part of the problem with making truly legendary abilities for weapons is the way item save DCs are calculated.

And costs. If you want Legendary weapons, you have to start by throwing out pretty much everything 3e says about the specifics magic item acquisition and mechanics except maybe Weapons of Legacy, though even there the fact that they cost money and impose penalties is stupid. Aragorn didn't have to get less good at hitting people with other swords when the broken blade was reforged.


But I'd also say legendary comes down more to presentation and aesthetics than raw mechanics, though ideally you want those to line up.

"Legendary" weapons depend on the power level of the setting. Glamdring is certainly legendary in Middle-Earth for instance, but in Forgotten Realms terms would have abilities that are ultimately not that remarkable.

I tend to agree with Seerow. "Legendary" is more about being interesting and narratively impactful than raw power. Glamdring, for example, is basically an anti-goblin/anti-orc sword. That's strictly worse than a sword that simply gave those bonuses all the time, but the latter sword is less "legendary", because it's harder to tell an interesting story about the Sword That Was Slightly Better Than Other Swords than it is to tell a story about Foe-Hammer, the bane of Sauron's creations. Or for another example of the same thing, though one that falls far short of "legendary" by any standard, consider the difference between a regular flaming sword and one that is covered entirely in flame (including the hilt). The latter is more interesting, even though it's more of a PITA to use.

[unseenmage]

The fun if 3.P for me comes from combining things unique to each system.

Riverine, Thinaun Steel, and Shapesand combined with PF tech which is priced just like magic items, but is mundane.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

"Legendary" weapons depend on the power level of the setting. Glamdring is certainly legendary in Middle-Earth for instance, but in Forgotten Realms terms would have abilities that are ultimately not that remarkable.

If you specifically mean in terms of a high-power D&D setting - legacy weapons, artifacts and epic weapons could all qualify.Yeah, but Sting (for another 'legendary' Middle Earth weapon) is, unfortunately, boring. Oh no, it glows when orcs are near. That'll help you run away. Useful if you're 1st level and on your own and away from the party, but pointless otherwise.

Hardly 'legendary,' even if there are (rather dull) legends about it. Though Brave, Brave Sir Robin was entertaining enough, I suppose.

Honestly, Tolkien's works are pretty terrible, and even the "exciting" bits (including the weapons) are pretty bleh.

[Anthrowhale]

You can make a pretty good lightsaber out of Sun Scepter + Greater Mighty Wallop.

It's a an Axiomatic, Disruption, Flaming Mace which uses touch attacks and deals 8d6 base damage.

This probably isn't in the legendary range, because any cleric with the spell domain could get it, but the damage it can put out when using power attack is certainly respectable.

[Psyren]

Yeah, but Sting (for another 'legendary' Middle Earth weapon) is, unfortunately, boring. Oh no, it glows when orcs are near. That'll help you run away. Useful if you're 1st level and on your own and away from the party, but pointless otherwise.

Hardly 'legendary,' even if there are (rather dull) legends about it. Though Brave, Brave Sir Robin was entertaining enough, I suppose.

Honestly, Tolkien's works are pretty terrible, and even the "exciting" bits (including the weapons) are pretty bleh.

My point was less that you (or anyone) should be impressed with weapons like Sting, and more that the OP should set some kind of baseline/definition for what should be considered "legendary" so we're all speaking the same language :smalltongue:

[Maat Mons]

Rapier of Unerring Direction has kind of a nice ability to ignore all miss chances. If it could be generalized and applied to something compatible with Power Attack, the resulting weapon would be pretty sweet.

That dagger that deals 3 or 4 (I forget) instances of damage per hit is another one that would be great if generalized and put on something compatible with Power Attack.

If you could make the effect of Black Blade of Disaster into a physical weapon that can be wielded, it could be pretty handy against folks immune to death by hit point loss, assuming BBoD inherits the effect of turning people to dust at 0 hp.

In many works of fiction, being made of an uncommon metal (https://xkcd.com/1114/) is enough to make a weapon legendary.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

My point was less that you (or anyone) should be impressed with weapons like Sting, and more that the OP should set some kind of baseline/definition for what should be considered "legendary" so we're all speaking the same language :smalltongue:You don't consider all the examples I gave to be baselines?

[Silly Name]

I mean, even in legends, how "awesome" a weapon is can often vary wildly. Excalibur's most notable power (and the most "plot-relevant" one) was actually tied to its sheath, which made Arthur invulnerable to all blows. That's not a particularly flashy power, but it's damn useful. There are many, many weapons of legend that have more subdued powers - such as ensuring victory or leadership over a country, which is pretty hard to translate in mechanical terms - or have vaguely defined qualities.

But the biggest problem is that, usually, the wielder of the weapon is far more important than the item itself. Roland's Durlindana is an awesome sword in itself, blessed and holy and unbreakable, but the one levelling mountains with it is Roland, not the blade. Odysseus' bow is a plot device, and Achilles' shield is cool and all, but it doesn't make him into a better fighter than he already was.

If we tie "legendary" to "one-shots demon lords and dragons", we cut out a large variety of stuff that makes up the shared knowledge of what legendary weapons are like.

[Psyren]

You don't consider all the examples I gave to be baselines?

No, because I have no idea what the stats of the "Ruyi Jingu Bang" are, or the "Gáe Bolg", nor whether you think they should translate to +1 weapons or +5 or beyond. Elaborating on that might help. Anduril might be a +2 sword in game terms for all I know, but still remarkable because of its setting.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

No, because I have no idea what the stats of the "Ruyi Jingu Bang" are, or the "Gáe Bolg", nor whether you think they should translate to +1 weapons or +5 or beyond. Elaborating on that might help. Anduril might be a +2 sword in game terms for all I know, but still remarkable because of its setting.Well, its abilities depend on the particular version of the tale being told, but Ruyi Jingu Bang was a deific relic (a quarterstaff, essentially) made of divine iron at the dawn of creation, originally a stick used by the gods to measure the depth of the periodic flooding of the world in ancient times, which was either kept in an undersea palace's treasury vault with incredibly powerful divine relics (absorbing divine energy from them for uncounted millennia), or it was used as one of the pillars of the undersea palace, holding it aloft. It absorbed divine energy from its surroundings to continually grow in strength, weighed 17,560 lbs at either Small or Medium size (depending on Sun Wukong's default height), was entirely indestructible, could change size and shape at the behest of the wielder (from the size of a needle to at least 100,000 miles long, reaching all the way from Hell to Heaven; these were quite likely not its limits, but were instead merely the smallest and largest Sun Wukong ever actually tried "on screen"); it could multiply itself hundreds of thousands of times over, fight on its own with all the skill and fury of its owner, and (IIRC) was both at least somewhat intelligent on its own and was very loyal to its master. It was every bit the match of any of the other weapons wielded by the gods, despite technically not actually being made to be a weapon itself, because it grew in power with the one who rightfully proclaimed ownership over it. Depending on the wielder, it could also control the seas and storms themselves, although Sun Wukong never used this aspect of it. It had a number of minor abilities, as well, such as acting as a universal lock-opener, the ability to change into any other weapon or tool one could imagine, and the ability to astrally project with its wielder and to be wieldable by his disembodied soul while he was in Hell.

Gáe Bolg, on the other hand, was a bit less insane, despite being even more dangerous. It always hit what it was aimed for, and once it wounded someone, it embedded itself in their body, splintering into thousands of branches, impaling the victim's internal organs with uncountable, indestructible needles. The only way to survive being struck (even for crazy-powerful warriors of legend and those of godly descent) was to simply be tough enough to withstand your insides being completely shredded. And the only way to remove it was to rip or cut most of the body's innards out, along with the spear. Essentially, it's instant death if it's thrust in your direction, unless you can literally survive having your innards shredded and removed wholesale.

[Morty_Jhones]

dud, the items you are discribing are most definatly in the Artifact category.

items woth untyped powers and affects or total bonuses of over +10 are Artifacts. even your dsiscription calls them one off constructs. They have special power and affects that would require both special materals and multiple greater wish spells to make.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

dud, the items you are discribing are most definatly in the Artifact category.That's an insult to the weapons in question. Most artifacts suck. Epic ones tend to be much better. Heck, properly-built non-epic weapons are often better than artifact weapons.


items woth untyped powers and affects or total bonuses of over +10 are Artifacts. even your dsiscription calls them one off constructs. They have special power and affects that would require both special materals and multiple greater wish spells to make.Weapons with greater than +10 special abilities (or +6 enhancement bonuses) are epic, not artifacts. At least in 3e. And the weapon I described in the first post was, in many ways, the equal of Ruyi Jingu Bang for utility, and nearly as good as Gáe Bolg at killing stuff. And note that not all of the properties of the weapons in question need to actually be weapon enhancements. As I likewise showed in the original post, there are ways to add abilities to weapons that are technically tangential to the actual weapon, but when added in later become really empowering to it.

Also, spellcheck? Pretty pleeease?

[AvatarVecna]

The 1st is an artifact in both lore and powers - it was used by the divine as a tool during the world's creation, and can wield thousands of versions of itself (among many other ridiculous abilities). The 2nd is a literal godkilling weapon - regardless of the litany of unspecified spells on the weapon in the OP, that weapon is almost certainly not a godkiller.

I'm also trying to think of other mythological weapons that could be considered similarly absurd and...it's not a long list? Mjolnir is an extremely powerful weapon in some capacity (as evidenced by how it takes an absolute Chad like Thor not to be destroyed trying to pick it up), but the power I found associated with the weapon itself are things like "returns to Thor when thrown". Thor does great things with Mjolnir, but Thor also does great things without Mjolnir. The closest we can maybe suss out is that Thor wasn't willing to take on Thrym and his army while Thrym has Mjolnir - so "Thrym + Mjolnir + Thrym's giants" is greater than "Thor without Mjolnir", but who knows, maybe Thor would've been willing to fight that fight if he had a second Mjolnir in his possession?

The other really legendary weapon that comes to mind is Excalibur. The closest I can find to serious powers attributed to it are the supposition that Excalibur was inspired by/an Anglicized version of Caladbolg, the "Three Great Strokes" sword that could fell armies in...three great strokes. Certainly Arthur has used Excalibur to slay armies, but it's unclear if this was because of properties of the sword or the greatest of Arthur or some combination of the two. What I found that is definitely attributable to the sword is "glows with the light of 30 torches" (a property literally any magic item could have, and also a specific weapon property available in a few places), and "can be stuck into a sword/anvil" (so it can bypass hardness to some extent). The legendary Excalibur may well be just a +1 adamantine longsword.

I don't recall the specific names, but Beowulf picked up a special sword capable of slaying Grendel's mother from her hoard of items, because she was immune to most weapons. Given that I don't imagine Beowulf and his men had many magic weapons, it's entirely feasible that this was merely a magic weapon capable of bypassing her absurd DR/magic? But maybe it was cooler than that and I'm just not steeped enough in Beowulf lore to know that. In any case, I'm pretty sure it shattered in that fight, so it's not exactly as iconic as Excalibur.

The other one I can recall hearing about that's pretty freaking cool was...argh I don't recall the name of it, but it was a flyswatter in some African myth. It belonged to a demigod (I think???) and had amazing powers like "does his chores for him" and "resurrect the dead" and "inconvencience gods" and "cheat at games of chance"? I know that at some point, the character learns a lesson of "there's always a bigger fish" at the hands of a god, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a godslaying weapon, but he still definitely faced down one or two???

I'll see if I can find some others.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The 1st is an artifact in both lore and powers - it was used by the divine as a tool during the world's creation, and can wield thousands of versions of itself (among many other ridiculous abilities). The 2nd is a literal godkilling weapon - regardless of the litany of unspecified spells on the weapon in the OP, that weapon is almost certainly not a godkiller.The weapon in the OP is a shapeshifting vorpal sword that counts as a +7 weapon (what with greater magic weapon +5 and Bane [Everything] in play) and Nat 20s on every hit, and auto-confirms via bless weapon, so there's a better than even chance that it could kill evil deities with a single swipe, via snicker-snacking them to headlessness. That's why I said it was "almost" as good at killing as Gáe Bolg; for anything evil that can't survive being beheaded, it's a one-hit kill that auto-hits, auto-crits, and auto-confirms every time against evil things.

But yes, I agree, those are both ridiculous legendary weapons. Mine isn't quite as good as either of those two in their specialties, but it's sitting squarely in the middle, being almost as good as Ruyi Jingu Bang at utility stuff (and much better than Gáe Bolg at it), while being almost as good as Gáe Bolg at killing (and actually being better at it than Ruyi Jingu Bang; at least against evil stuff).

So I do think it deserves the title of "legendary weapon" as much as either of them, at least raw capabilities-wise. Now it just needs an actual legend to go with it...

[Emperor Tippy]

To a large extent it depends on how you balance the world. I mean a Flaming weapon might only add a few points of damage but think about that in terms of the percentage of an average person's HP.

Or take a Brilliant Energy weapon. Full Plate is +8 to AC, when the base human is AC 10. A level 5 Fighter with 14 Str has an AB of +7, so they hit a regular commoner on 85% of strikes while in combat. Put that regular commoner into Full Plate and the Fighter hits 45% of the time. Now give a level 1 Fighter with 10 Str a Brilliant Energy weapon, he has an AB of +2 and is attacking AC 10, so he hits that guy in full plate 60% of the time.

On in other words, taking one of the weakest of the weak and giving them that weapon makes them 15% more likely to hit their foe than a basically peak human combatant.

The higher the ECL, the lower the marginal gains of a magical weapon becomes and thus the less legendary they feel.

Or take the other extreme. Take a Commoner 1 and put them in Bracers of Armor +8 with a +6 Dex Enchantment thrown on top. That is +14 AC to that lowly commoner, giving them an AC of 24. Suddenly that top tier fighter is missing 80% of the time, and the Commoner's peers need a natural 20 for a hit. That would easily be a legendary item in real life or at the real life equivalent D&D levels. But for an ECL 20 character?